It did not have walls.
And yet the space held them.
It did not have pillars.
And yet it supported their weight—not physical, but emotional, mnemonic, historical. The kind of weight that accumulates not in the body but in the soul. And for the first time, Kye felt what it meant to be unburdened not by release, but by recognition.
The Shroud's core glowed before them—a soft structure of pulsing iridescence that neither blinded nor beckoned. It simply existed.
Waiting.
The Cathedral Without Names was not built from stone or memorylight. It was constructed entirely of unspoken longing.
Memories that had never been narrated.
Traumas that had never been shared.
Joys that had never been articulated.
It held them all.
And it never asked them to be explained.
Zeraphine reached out, her hand trembling. The air around her fingertips shimmered, then receded—not in rejection, but in respect.
"It's not asking us to understand," she whispered.
Kye stepped forward beside her. "It's asking us to listen."
The Chronicle flame at his wrist extended slowly. Its light no longer curved around his skin but reached outward in dozens of threads—gently brushing the air like fingers. Each strand made contact with the formless surface of the Cathedral.
No surge.
No reaction.
Only one quiet word:
"Remain."
> ARTICLE SIXTY-ONE: Some truths do not need to be spoken, shared, or even acknowledged to matter. They only ask to be held.
Inside the Cathedral, stories stirred—not as images, not as voices, but as temperature.
The warmth of a forgotten embrace.
The sharp chill of a goodbye that was never said.
The humid pressure of a grief carried for so long it had become architecture.
Zeraphine's knees buckled.
Kye caught her.
Not from injury.
From weightlessness.
To feel seen without needing to perform, explain, or justify… it overwhelmed.
And then the core pulsed again.
A door appeared.
No hinges. No edges. Just the possibility of transition.
Kye turned to her. "Do we go deeper?"
Zeraphine met his gaze. "We're not going deeper. We're being invited in."
He took her hand.
Together, they stepped toward the memory that had never asked to be remembered—only never to be erased.